The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [41]
But a man must live. Not for nothing do we invest so much of ourselves in other people's lives—or even in momentary pictures of people we do not know. It cuts both ways: the happy group inside the lighted window, the figure in long grass in the orchard seen from the train stay and support us in our dark hours. Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do. It is the emotion to which we remain faithful, after all: we are taught to recover it in some other place. Major Brutt, brought that first night to Windsor Terrace at the height of his inner anguish on Pidgeon's account, already began to attach himself to that warm room. For hospitality, and that little girl on the rug, he began to abandon Pidgeon already. Even he had a ruthlessness in his sentiments—and he had been living alone in a Cromwell Road hotel. The glow on the rug, Anna on the sofa with her pretty feet up, Thomas nosing so kindly round for cigars, Portia nursing her elbows as though they had been a couple of loved cats—here was the focus of the necessary dream. All the same it was Thomas he, still, could not quite away with. He hoped, by taking Thomas's cigarette, by being a little further in debt to him, to feel more naturally to him, as man to man.
He looked on Thomas as someone who held the prize. But in this darkening light of Saturday afternoon, loneliness lay on his study like a cloud. The tumbled papers, the ash, the empty coffee-cup made Pidgeon's successor look untriumphant, as though he had never held any prize. Even the fire only grinned, like a fire in an advertisement. Major Brutt, whose thought could puzzle out nothing, had, in regard to people, a sort of sense of the weather. He was aware of the tension behind Thomas's manners, of the uneasy and driven turnings of his head. Without nerves, Major Brutt had those apprehensions that will make an animal suddenly leave, or refuse to enter, a room. Was Pidgeon in here with them, overtowering Thomas, while Thomas did the honours to Pidgeon's friend? He had decided to smoke, so he pulled at his cigarette, reflecting the fire in his fixed, pebble-grey eyes. He saw that he ought to go soon—but not yet.
Thomas, meanwhile, gave a finished representation of a man happily settling into a deep chair. He gave, inadvertently, one overstated yawn, then had to say, to excuse this: "It's too bad, Anna's not in."
"Oh well, of course I chanced that. Just dropping in."
"It's too bad Portia's not in. I've no idea where she's gone."
"I daresay she goes about quite a bit?"
"No, not really. Not yet. She's a bit young."
"There's something sweet about her, if I may say so," said Major Brutt, lighting up.
"Yes, there is, rather.... She's my sister, you know."
"That's awfully nice."
"Or rather, my half sister."
"Comes to much the same thing."
"Does it?" said Thomas. "Yes, I suppose it does. In a way, it feels a bit funny though. For one thing, she and I are a half generation out. However, it seems to work out all right. We thought we might try it here for a year or so, see how she liked things with us, and so on. She's an orphan, you see—which is pretty tough on her. We had never seen as much as we'd have liked to of her, because my father liked living abroad. We rather felt she might find us a bit of a proposition. Having just lost her mother, and not being grown up yet, so not able to go about with Anna, we thought she might find London a bit... well—However, it seems to work out all right. We found some quite good classes for her to go to, so she's been making friends with girls of her own age...."
Overcome by the dullness of what he had been saying, Thomas trailed off and slumped further back in his chair. But Major Brutt, having listened with close attention, evidently expected more to come. "Nice to have a kid like that to keep one cheerful," he said. "How old did you say she was?"
"Sixteen."
"She must be great company for—for Mrs. Quayne."
"For Anna? Oh yes. Funny you and Anna running into each other. She's slack about keeping up with her old friends, and at the same time she certainly misses them."